C4 was founded in 1972 to help people released from psychiatric hospitals into the Uptown and Edgewater communities. Organized as the Edgewater-Uptown Community Mental Health Council, concerned residents received a federal grant to open an outpatient clinic. Their funding application eloquently described the plight of their neighbors discharged from state hospitals: "If qualifying for service is commensurate with length of time denied services, then these former patients have been standing in line for as many as 40 years. …We cannot repay 40 years of institutional confinement, but we can provide a more meaningful experience, and perhaps, rekindle hope and the spark of motivation."

Since that time, C4's service area has expanded to rekindle hope for individuals and families on Chicago’s North Side and beyond. A leading provider of clinical services, C4 is recognized as a compassionate and innovative community mental health agency, keenly sensitive to the diverse racial and ethnic populations it serves. From its beginning as a one-room storefront, C4 has grown to include five facilities that provide a range of mental health, substance use and family counseling services. True to its mission, C4 has continually developed services to meet emerging mental health and social problems, including assistance for those struggling with substance use, parenting classes, survivors of sexual assault, young adults, and children under three years old.